#11
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Can I just say that while we are all haunted by the idea of the asylum as dreadful places, in which dreadful things happened, when they were set up they were better than many of the other options.
I have read some of the records for Brookwood in Surrey, and what comes across is a cutting edge system, trying to cure the inmates. Didn't succeed, but then we don't do too much better today. On a slightly different topic, did you know that prisoners on average put on a stone in weight while in jail? However dull the diet might have been, it was considerably better than starving on the street.
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The chestnuts cast their flambeaux |
#12
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Thanks Nell. Need to see if I can find out anymore info as that might be my great great grandmother. She a had stillbirth and premature birth in the same year and I think it might be around that year, can't check as I don't have access to my tree right now.
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Jay |
#13
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Phoenix
Good point. It was better than the early days in Bedlam where looking at the loonies was a tourist attraction. The patients would have care, routine, work and regular meals. I'm sure there were abuses - but there are now, despite all the policies and protocols and watchdogs etc in place. Mental health has always been the Cinderella of our health services, probably because its the hardest to understand. As you know, our school was surrounded by asylums - Cane Hill, Netherne and Warlingham Park. Originally they were built in the countryside but suburbs encroached. I was always a bit nervous when we went to one of them to sing carols at Christmas!
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Love from Nell researching Chowns in Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire Brewer, Broad, Eplett & Pope in Cornwall Smoothy & Willsher/Wiltshire in Essex & Surrey Emms, Mealing + variants, Purvey & Williams in Gloucestershire Barnes, Dunt, Gray, Massingham, Saul/Seals/Sales in Norfolk Matthews & Nash in Warwickshire |
#14
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Thank you, Kite. I've found that my Emily Louisa Wilson was admitted 2 Jan 1909 to Menston in Yorkshire where she died on 14 May 1924. Fifteen years, then.
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